


Mistaken

by valkyrienix



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrienix/pseuds/valkyrienix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grandpa Harley guiltily adopts the orphaned Strider boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistaken

**Author's Note:**

> im dumb and got inspired by demonstuck again whoops  
> no regrets  
> credit for demonstuck goes to my-friend-the-frog on tumblr

You stand over his body, foot in the small of his back, looking down on him. He’s breathing hard, the sound garbled by the blood dribbling down from his nose, and no doubt from the multiple times you’ve shot his chest. You’re surprised he’s still alive, but you know you shouldn’t be. This is Strider after all. You’ve been dealing with his shenanigans and miscellaneous crimes since you’d first become a demon hunter.

That was forty years ago, and you’re an old man now. Strider looks the same as he always has. Blonde hair, demonic orange eyes. cock-eyed grin. Whenever you came across him, he’d salute you with that damned grin, and then promptly disappear.

He’s not grinning now. He’s gritting his teeth as he attempts to stand up. You dig your boot back down into the small of his back, smashing him back to the ground. You won’t allow him to get up this time. This is the first time in the four decades that you’ve hunted him that you’re on the winning side. You’re not about to let go of the victory, honor be damned.

“I’ve had enough of this tomfoolery, Mr. Strider,” you say flatly, “We’ve been at this for how long? Too long, if you ask me. Too long. I haven’t forgotten about that one time in Berlin either, mind you.” You cock your rifle and aim it at his head, and he chokes out a laugh.

From the corner there are muffled whimpers.

“I cut off your mustache, Harley,” he says, “Calm your shit.”

You harrumph and he laughs more. Even now, when you have the upper hand and he’s close to death he jokes around. He was ever the prankster, but some of his pranks were less like the faerie Adam and more like the demon he was. You recall mournfully how he killed your daughter and her husband ruthlessly. He’d wanted information out of you, and you’d refused to give.

He’d sat there thoughtfully tapping his chin while you’d anxiously fidgeted in the chair you were tied to. “Alright,” he’d said at last, “Have it your way.” He then had left the room, returning a half hour later with your daughter’s dead body slung over one shoulder and her husband’s under his arm. You’d screamed bloody murder at him, and then at last had given him the information he wanted.

You thank God every day that he hadn’t gotten to sweet Jade.

That was five years ago, and now you’ve finally got him. You’re going to finally get your revenge. Your finger trembles on the trigger as you stare down at him. His silly glasses are broken and askew, allowing his orange eyes to pierce yours with all of their hellfire.

“This is it, Strider,” you whisper, “I’m sending you back to Hell. Permanently.”

“Permanently, eh?” he says, and his fine brow rises with mock interest.

“It’s a silver bullet, Strider,” you say, and your confidence rises. “Not just any silver bullet though! It’s properly carved, you see. It destroys your physical body, but remains embedded in your soul. You don’t get a chance to have another mortal body ever again.”

“I’ll find a way, I’m sure,” he says, but his voice falters.

There are more whimpers from the corner.

You look over, two sets of eyes looking at you from the tangle of arms and legs. They’re huddled together, watching as you destroy their father. Brother. Relative of some sort. You’re not entirely certain what their relation is, only that they’re related and have demon blood in them. There’s some human in them, you know. They don’t have the fangs or the ears, nor the claws. Their eyes, however, contain the icy hot hellfire. One has brilliant red eyes while the other has orange, like his elder. Right now those eyes are filled with tears. You watch them with a mixture of pity and hate. They look right back at you with terror. They’re Jade’s age. You flinch at the thought of having to kill them.

“Do me a favor,” Strider says from the ground, and you whip your gaze back to him. As if he can read your mind, he says, “Don’t hurt those kids, will you?”

You can’t help but sneer at him. You pity those kids yes, but the idea of sparing them per Strider’s request makes your stomach churn. “They’re going to grow up and be just like you, Strider. I’ll send them to Hell with you.”

He doesn’t so much as flinch. “I hope you, as servant of God, are comfortable killing innocents then.”

“Innocent?” you whisper. “Their eyes have the very Hellfire from which they were spawned!” You grimace and dig your boot in more. Your patience is now shot. “I think this conversation is over, Mr. Strider. Any last words to speak of?” Your finger hovers over the trigger. This is it. You’ll finally have some closure over your daughter’s death. You’ll be rid of the looming feeling of despair. It was all your fault she had died. All your fault. And now, perhaps now, you can forgive yourself for her death.

Strider shifts his gaze to the boys. His glasses slip from his nose to the floor with a clatter. It makes you jump, and you nervously steady your grip. He holds up a fist, and the boy with eyes similar to his holds his up, too. The red-eyed one starts sniffling more, gripping tight to his brother’s sleeve. 

“Stay strong, kiddos,” Strider says softly. He turns back to you, eyes you frostily, and then attempts to stand. You jump and your finger slips before he can say or do anything else. Without a sound, he dissolves into blackened dust, swirling in the air for a moment before settling on the ground. Only his glasses remain. The smaller boy, the one with the red eyes, howls. He rushes at you, tears streaming, and pounds at your legs. You let him. He has a right to be angry at you.

The other one stands back. His expression is cold as he watches you. You know he’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done here. Not that it’s going to matter when he’s in Hell. You’re going to send him there. Aren’t you?

He pounds harder on your legs, screaming at you. You don’t understand what he’s saying, but you think he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. You’re about to reload your gun when an image of Jade flashes across your vision. She’s sitting on the ground, crying, her knee split open and bleeding. Bec is trying to comfort her, nuzzling his head under her chin but it’s to no avail.

You lower the gun. “Dash it all,” you murmur, and you pick the smaller one up. The older one stares at you angrily, but you come over and pick him up, too. He doesn’t struggle, just eyes you coldly. 

“You’re not going to kill us, then?” he says. You stare at him for a moment, surprised that such a young body can host such an old voice. You then reflect that you probably just aged both of these kids ten years as they witnessed their guardian’s death.

“No,” you murmur. “You’re just going to forget everything that happened here, is all.”

That’s when they both start to struggle, screaming and yelling and pounding on you. You pay it no attention, slinging one of your shoulder and the other under your arm. You need to get them to HQ pronto.

== >

Your name is Dave Strider and you’re pretty fucking nervous for your first date. Well, you wouldn’t use the word nervous because that would betray that you really don’t have everything under control. You really shouldn’t be nervous. You’ve known Jade since you were what, four? Hell, you’ve lived with her for pretty much the entirety of your life. She was like a sister, except not.

You were hesitant at first when you realized you had the crush of the century on her in middle school. It’s not like you could help it though. Love was love, wasn’t it? You held back, thinking yourself to be pretty fucking sick to be attracted to your sister, adoptive or not. But then when high school hit, she started to flirt with you until it went on a hellacious level. It was pretty hard to ignore.

Your best friend John even noted it, and so you finally had the guts to ask her out last week, two years after she had started flirting back. You supposed if she felt the same way, there wasn’t any harm in going through with it. It wasn’t like you were even legally siblings anyway. 

She’d accepted without hesitation, flinging herself in your arms. You’d hugged her back, and buried your face in her thick hair. It always smelled like her garden and the rich earth. The hug really shouldn’t have been any different than the hugs you’d always gotten from her, but this one was. Something stirred in your chest, and you gripped her all the tighter for it.

You didn’t tell old man Harley though. Even though he was nice enough to take you and your brother Dirk in after your older brother died in a car accident, you know he watches over both of you with a disapproving eye. When you and Dirk were much younger, he had you two read the Bible every day while Jade played outside with Bec the First. You guess he wanted to instill the fear of God into you, but you ended up being an atheist anyway. Religion doesn’t make sense to you, and you don’t plan on trying to make sense of it.

It’s not like he’d be around enough to know you and Jade had a relationship. He was always out on some important business. He’d leave for months at a time, and leave you at the Egbert or Crocker household. It depended on who was available because John and Jane’s parents were always absent themselves. They all worked for the same company or some shit. John said he was probably going to end up working for the company, too, but when you asked what it was he would blush and hurriedly change the subject.

But you’ve digressed from the topic at hand, dwelling in your worries.

You adjust your shades in the mirror a second time, effectively hiding your red eyes. You like to think they’re hot shit, but old man Harley did mention if you had red eyes in this town, you were bound to get shot. Which was pretty true, you guess. You’d seen enough news reports of albinos in the area getting brutally murdered with stakes and silver bullets and all of that occult bullshittery.

Your hair looks pretty okay, you think. You would fix it more, but you get the feeling it’s going to get messed up anyway with Jade constantly running her hands through it. She’s done that since you were little, and the unfortunate habit hasn’t really left her.

She bangs on the bathroom door, her cheery voice interrupting your thoughts. “C’mon, Dave! We’re gonna be late for the movie!”

You open it, looking down at her smiling face. God, she’s cute. You succumb to your urge to kiss her, softly, gently, innocently. She kisses back a little more wildly, like the vines in her garden. She too, you think, is a wild vine. You can never control her, and that’s the way you like it. She’ll keep you on your toes.

“Right,” you say, drawing back, “Let’s go.”

She grabs your hand, skipping ahead out the door. You both call good-bye to Dirk, who’s as absorbed as ever in the internet. He gives a half-hearted wave from his dark corner, and continues typing away.

You hop into your old, beaten truck that the three of you kids share. It roars to life, lighting the darkening driveway with its headlights. The drive to the theatre is short, so there’s not much time to start a conversation really worth getting into. You have a hard time thinking of something to say, and your stomach starts to churn uncomfortably. You manage to keep your cool, but you know if this were a long drive, it would be filled with uncomfortable silences.

You pull into the lot and park, and you realize your hands have been shaking the whole time. Jade grabs your right one, squeezing gently, and looks at you with glittering eyes. “Let’s… not go into the theatre,” she says. “Let’s stay out here.”

“Are you sure?” you say, “I mean, I don’t want you to miss the Squiddles.”

She lightly smacks your arm, giggling. “We came here to see superheroes kick ass!”

“Oh, right,” you say, and shift your torso a bit as your stomach wrings itself dry. You hope this was just something you ate and not nerves. You don’t know what you’d do if this happened every time you went on a date.

She leans toward you, her hands gripping the armrest tightly. “Dave, let’s stay in the car.”

“Are you sure, Jade? I mean, I thought you really wanted to see--”

She’s kissing you before you can finish the sentence. You don’t resist, falling into it almost like you fell in love with her. Slowly at first, but then with full force. She hungrily pulls you closer, and a groan escapes you as the cupholders and the shift gear gets in the way of you truly touching her, but she doesn’t seem to notice, crawling over it and settling in your lap.

It’s then that the pounding in your ears starts. You ignore it, thinking it to be from how turned on you are. Because, well, you are. You continue kissing her, and eventually move from her mouth down her neck, licking and, to your surprise, biting. She doesn’t seem to mind though. Her mouth opens in a cute little “o” the first time you do it, and when you do it again she squeaks out your name.

It’s about this time that your vision is flickering for you. It goes from red to normal and back to red again. There’s bile in the back of your throat and your teeth start to ache as you kiss her neck more. You try to distract yourself and go to her collarbone, stringing a line of kisses and lips and a swirl of your tongue in the hollow of her throat to top it off. She gasps and throws her head back, giving you full access to anything.

The pounding increases, the flickering intensifies, and suddenly you can hear nothing and see only the veins on her neck and you’re biting into them and tasting them and taking all you can and _oh God why didn’t you know such pleasure existed._ It’s so sweet and so rich and _Christ it’s thick._

A scream pierces through your thoughts and you’re jolted back to reality. Jade’s struggling and pushing you away, and there’s pain in your chest. You look downward and there’s a strangely marked knife protruding from where your heart should be. You look back up at Jade and she’s mouthing the word “demon” and she hurries out of the car.

Your name is Dave Strider and the last thing you do before you fade away is wish your Bro was here.


End file.
